Child prodigies (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Child prodigies |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2011 |
| length | 100 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Marcus O. Rosenmüller |
| script |
Stephen Glantz Kris Karathomas Marcus O. Rosenmüller Rolf Schübel |
| production |
Alice Brauner Artur Brauner Hans-Wolfgang Jurgan |
| music | Martin Stock |
| camera | Roman Novocien |
| cut | Raimund Vienken |
| occupation | |
| |
Wunderkinder is a German film drama from 2011. Directed by Marcus O. Rosenmüller . The theme of the invasion of the German armed forces in 1941 during Hitler's operation Barbarossa in the Ukraine .
action
The story told is embedded as a flashback in a short framework story that takes place in the present: the celebrated violin virtuoso Hanna Reich gives her last concert. During the rehearsal, an old man appears unannounced at the door of the hall, who pretends to be acquainted with Hanna. He is turned away, but leaves the old manuscript of a piece of music and a personal message for Hanna. When Hanna sees both, she is shocked. Her granddaughter Nina, who recently appeared at the rehearsal, wants to know what this is all about. Hanna begins to tell. This is where the main plot of the film begins.
Before the German Wehrmacht attacked the Soviet Union, Hanna Reich lived as the daughter of the wealthy German entrepreneur Max Reich in the eastern Ukrainian city of Poltava . The father runs a large brewery here. Hanna takes violin lessons. In a concert she experiences the two Jewish children of about the same age, Abrascha Kaplan and Larissa Brodsky , who are celebrated in the city as “ child prodigies ”, as virtuoso as they master their respective instruments violin and piano. Together with their teacher Irina Salomonowa , Abrasha and Larissa go on a tour to Moscow and Leningrad. A concert at Carnegie Hall is also planned. After the concert experience, Hanna would like her father to be able to practice with Larissa and Abrascha one day. After the music teacher also agreed, Max Reich fulfilled his daughter's wish. However, Larissa and Abrasha initially distrust them. After a while, however, the suspicion they harbor turns out to be unfounded, which is why the three develop a deeper friendship.
However, this friendship is put to the test when Hitler declares war on the Soviet Union. Max Reich, his wife and Hanna are said to be arrested by the NKVD as hostile foreigners . With the help of the Jewish families of Abrasha and Larissa, the Reich family managed to escape to their own brewery and hide there. When this hiding place becomes too unsafe, however, the family takes refuge in an abandoned forest hut, where no one ever comes by. The friendship of the children becomes closer and the three friends compose the friendship score together , which can be heard again and again as film music .
When the German armed forces advance further into the Ukraine, Brodsky's hospital is bombed and the city is occupied by Germans. Near their forest hiding place, the Reichs reveal themselves as Germans to passing SS troops and can return to their house under the protection of SS-Standartenführer Schwartow. At the same time, Jewish houses are looted. A precious violin is confiscated from one of the houses and given to Hanna by the music-loving Schwartow. On the way home, she told him that the Reichs owed their rescue from arrest after the outbreak of war to the families of two musical “child prodigies”. On the same day, Abrasha's and Larissa's grandparents are deported. However, Max Reich managed to protect the music teacher Irina at the last minute. Reich realizes that he has to act: He hides the two Jewish families and Irina in the very same brewery cellar in which his family had been hiding a few weeks earlier. When Max Reich suddenly has to travel, the Jewish families are locked in the cellar.
Abrascha manages to escape from the cellar and get Hanna. Together with the brewery employee Alexis, the prisoners manage to escape undetected from the brewery with a beer truck. However, the refugees encounter a German patrol in a forest. A firefight ensues in which German soldiers are shot down by Irina, but in return she and Alexis are fatally injured. Hanna is shocked and ends up in a labor camp for Jewish children. The mistake is discovered later and Hanna is allowed to go back to her family. However, due to the shock, she lost her language and can only make herself understood in writing using a slate.
Meanwhile, the two Jewish families flee to the forest hut. Here, however, they are already expected by the SS and given " special treatment ". In a conversation, Max Reich succeeds in influencing Schwartow and saving Abrasha and Larissa. However, the children have to give a flawless concert on Heinrich Himmler's birthday , only then should their survival be ensured. If this is not the case, the two “child prodigies” will die. Schwartow had made corresponding hints to Larissa while he was peeling an apple with a pocket knife and explaining to the child musical perfection in the concert as vital. In reality, Schwartow wants and expects mistakes in her musical performance. On October 7, 1941, Himmler's birthday, the two played in front of the assembled Nazi leadership. Abrasha plays terrific. Larissa shoots on stage, provoked by the uncanny conversation with Schwartow, images of horror through the head. Dominated by the thought of the loss of her family, she collapses on stage.
The end of the film closes the storyline. Hanna, who has grown old, tells her granddaughter that Schwartow had Larissa murdered, along with hundreds of other children. Abrash came to a camp. You never heard from him again. Then, however, the hall door opens and after decades Hanna and Abrascha are now facing each other again. Abrascha says that he never played the violin again, and that the magic no longer existed after they were separated. He only saw Carnegie Hall from the outside. At the lake, Hanna and Abrascha each place a white lily in the water for Larissa and for all the murdered children.
Reviews
“Marcus O. Rosenmüller does not make a cinema of dismay, but rather a big emotional cinema, approaches the difficult subject without clichés and tells the touching story from a child's perspective in a long flashback. One or more children can be seen in almost every scene. Your gaze makes the madness tangible. In addition to stars such as Kai Wiesinger , Gudrun Landgrebe , Catherine Flemming and Konstantin Wecker , it is the young actors who convince, especially the 14-year-old star violinist Elin Kolev , an exceptional talent on the classical scene. In addition to the strong story that captivates children and adults on various emotional levels, it is also the power of the music that gives this film a special character. "Wunderkinder", a plea for courage and moral courage, remembers the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in World War II with great urgency . "
“The film, produced by Artur and Alice Brauner, tells a complex and exciting story from troubled political times. Unfortunately, one relies on solutions that are too dramaturgically simple. The children and all the protagonists in the film speak German to each other and the cast is anything but international. No matter how hard Gudrun Landgrebe as a Jew, communist and ingenious music teacher, it just doesn't seem authentic enough [...] and [...] at best like a leisurely TV film [...]. Only Konstantin Wecker as a manipulative SS man who lets the children play for their lives is a real casting coup. In the end, there remains the honorable attempt to tell the horrors of the persecution of the Jews from the perspective of children with an overly contrived story. This is touching at times, but unfortunately only failed in an interesting way overall. "
Awards
The film won the Jerusalem International Film Festival and was the most successful film at the Giffoni Film Festival with three awards. In addition, it received the rating valuable from the German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) . The film also emerged as the winner in 2012 at the 16th International Festival of Jewish Cinema in São Paulo , Brazil .
Web links
- Prodigies in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Child prodigies in the lexicon of international film
- Elin Kolev wins in Brazil in 2012
- Three child prodigies in the spotlight
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for child prodigies . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2011 (PDF; test number: 128 405 K).
- ↑ Child prodigies. Retrieved July 28, 2012 .
- ↑ Jörg Taszman: “Wunderkinder” , Deutschlandradio Kultur, October 5, 2011, accessed on January 3, 2015.
- ↑ Wunderkinder - Official Website. Retrieved July 28, 2012 .